LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 



Shelf J3 V*W 

A^-£ 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 






Copyright, i8go f 
By Anson D. F. Randolph and Company. 



John Wilson and Son, Cambridge. 



Eo |Kg Jlotfjer 

IN MEMORY OF 

HER CHILDREN IN HEAVEN 

FROM ONE OF 

HER CHILDREN ON EARTH 



PREFACE. 



These sermons were not written for the 
press, but for the pulpit, amid the inces- 
sant cares and labours of a pastor's life. 
Even for the correction of the mantiscript 
and the reading of the proofs it has been 
necessary for me to rely on the kindness 
of friends, which I here acknowledge with 
gratitude. 

The same reasons which led to the preach- 
ing of the sermons have made me consent to 
their printing, — a desire to bear strong and 
clear witness against a falsehood that has 
kept many men from loving God, and a still 
deeper desire to testify to the abundant grace 
of our Lord Jesus Christ as the Saviour of 
the world, and to bring a sure consolation 
to those who are in sorrow for the death of 



vi Preface. 

little children. The dark old dream of the 
perdition of infants has indeed begun to 
fade, long since, from the soul of Christen- 
dom, and the hope of their salvation has 
grown brighter and more clear from year to 
year ; but there is still room and need for a 
book to prove that the black vision is utterly 
baseless, and that the bright hope is altogether 
reasonable, since it rests upon the same foun- 
dation as Christianity itself. And this, in 
brief, is what I desire to do : to show that 

NO CHILDREN LOST, 
ALL CHILDREN SA FED, 

is as true as Gospel. 

There are many things left out of this 
book for want of space. But one omissio7t, 
I feel quite sure, will attract attention and 
comment. There is no attempt in these ser- 
mons to fix the age at which childhood ends 
and moral discretion begins. This omis- 
sion is made on purpose, and simply because 
I do not know what that age is. Human 
laws recognize the distinction between child- 



Preface. vii 

hood and maturity, but they differ greatly 
in the period at which they determine ac- 
countability. Indeed, it is hardly a matter 
which can be reckoned in years. And one 
thing is certain, — God will be not less, but 
more, just and merciful than man, in recog- 
nizing his little children and dealing gently 
with them, being mindful of their ignorance 
and weakness. 

HENRY VAN DYKE. 

New York City, 

Feb. 3, 1890. 



THE INVISIBLE SERVICE. 

It is no little thing, when a fresh soul 

And a fresh heart, with their unmeasured scope 

For good, not gravitating earthward yet, 

But circling in diviner periods, 

Are sent into the world, — no little thing, 

When this unbounded possibility 

Into the outer silence is withdrawn. 

Ah,. in this world, where every guiding thread 

Ends suddenly in the one sure centre, death, 

The visionary hand of Might-have-been 

Alone can fill Desire's cup to the brim ! 

How changed, dear friend, are thy part and thy 

child's ! 
He bends above thy cradle now, or holds 
His warning finger out to be thy guide ; 
Thou art the nursling now ; he watches thee 
Slow learning, one by one, the secret things 
Which are to him used sights of every day ; 
He smiles to see thy wondering glances con 
The grass and pebbles of the spirit world, 
To thee miraculous ; and he will teach 
Thy knees their due observances of prayer. 



io The Invisible Service. 

Children are God's apostles, day by day 

Sent forth to preach of love, and hope, and peace ; 

Nor hath thy babe his mission left undone. 

To me, at least, his going hence hath given 

Serener thoughts and nearer to the skies, 

And opened a new fountain in my heart 

For thee, my friend, and all : and oh, if Death 

More near approaches meditates, and clasps 

Even now some dearer, more reluctant hand, 

God, strengthen thou my faith, that I may see 

That 't is thine angel, who, with loving haste, 

Unto the service of the inner shrine 

Doth waken thy beloved with a kiss. 

James Russell Lowell, 

From Lines on the Death of a Friends Child. 



No Cfjitorm 3Lost 



I. 

Slttti tt came to pagg, on tfje gtfimtfj tag, tfjat 
tije rfjtlti turti. — 2 Sam. xii. 18. 

A ND then what became of the child? 
■^ Whither did the young spirit fly? 
In what estate did the infant soul find 
itself when the last quivering breath had 
passed the lips and the tiny heart was 
lying still? 

This is the question which rises to meet 
us at the death-bed of a child* It is the 
cry of the immortal love and tenderness 
by which God has bound the souls of 
parents to their children. David asked 
it in his grief three thousand years ago ; 
and since then how many millions of 
men and women, looking down through 
their tears upon a silent little face, have 
murmured to themselves, " Where is my 



14 No Children Lost, 

darling now?" Nor will it cease to be 
repeated while there is a true mother's 
heart beating in this world, or a father's 
spirit which retains one trace of the like- 
ness of God's paternal love. 

But we must not imagine for a moment 
that this question has no wider meaning, 
no weightier import, than that which is 
given to it by our personal affections. It 
is, in fact, one of the central questions of 
religion. It touches the justice and the 
goodness of the Divine Being. It affects 
more broadly than any other inquiry the 
ultimate destiny of the human race, of 
which the greater part dies in childhood. 
We are facing a question of immense im- 
portance when we ask what becomes of 
the little children when they die. It is time 
for us to take up the subject and consider 
it carefully. It is time for us to meet with 
candour the issues which are involved in 
it. It is time for us to go to the bottom 
of the subject, and make up our minds 
what the Word of God and the religion 



No Children Lost. 15 

of Jesus Christ teach us to believe about 
it. And this is what I shall try to do, 
praying for light to discern the truth, and 
courage to speak it out, and skill to make 
it plain and straight and clear beyond the 
chance of mistake. 

There are three, and only three, possi- 
ble answers to the question, What becomes 
of those who die in infancy? 

They are all lost. 

Some of them are lost and some saved. 

They are all saved. 

The first answer we may pass without 
notice ; for, so far as I know, it has never 
been accepted by Christian people, and it 
is not necessary for us to waste our time 
wandering in the absolute darkness of 
heathendom or materialism. The second 
answer, which divides the little children 
at death into two classes, and sends one 
class to heaven and the other class to hell, 
has undoubtedly been given by a great 
many people whose Christianity, to say 
the least, was sincere and honest. This 



1 6 No Children Lost, 

is the doctrine which we shall consider in 
this sermon. I want to prove two things 
in regard to it: First, that it has been 
taught by men in almost every part of 
the Christian Church, from the fourth 
to the eighteenth century; Second, that 
it is certainly false, and that it is equally 
against reason and revelation to believe 
that there are any infants in hell. 

I. It has been audaciously asserted and 
commonly believed that the doctrine of 
the perdition of infants originated with 
those theologians who are called Calvin- 
ists, and that the Presbyterian Church is 
peculiarly responsible for it. Never was 
there a more ignorant assertion, never an 
assumption more at variance with the 
facts. 

It has been piously claimed, on the 
other hand, that the Calvinistic theology 
has never recognized this doctrine, and 
that the Presbyterian Church has kept 
itself entirely free from the shadow of it. 
Never was there a claim made with more 



No Children Lost 17 

amiable intentions and less substantial 
proofs. 

The simple truth is, — and, after all, the 
truth is what we want, — that the responsi- 
bility for this doctrine rests, not upon any 
one branch of the Church, but upon theo- 
logians at large, from Saint Augustine down 
to the end of the seventeenth century. 
Here and there you will find men who 
were bold enough to deny and disavow 
it; but everywhere you will find men 
who not only accepted but taught it. 
That is the amazing fact. You will not 
discover those dreadful words, " Hell is 
paved with infants* skulls/' in the works 
of any ancient writer. It is merely a 
waste of time to try to run that gray- 
headed falsehood to earth. But you 
will have no trouble in finding theories 
and statements which imply or declare 
that some infants pass through death 
into perdition, in the writings of Roman 
Catholics, Lutherans, Presbyterians, and 
Episcopalians. 



1 8 No Children Lost 

Let us free our minds of cant; let us 
lay aside our prejudices, and examine the 
, record fairly. You will naturally demand 
the proof of such a startling assertion, and 
you shall have it as briefly and as clearly 
as possible. 

We may begin with Roman Catholic 
theologians. First comes St. Augustine, 
who was justly called durus pater infan- 
tum, — " the hard father of infants," He 
teaches that infants who die without bap- 
tism are lost; and though their punish- 
ment be of a milder sort than that of 
those who have added actual to original 
sin, they are finally excluded from the 
presence of God. Peter Lombard, in the 
twelfth century, puts the same doctrine 
very concisely when he says : " For origi- 
nal sin, which is derived from the parents, 
infants will be damned." 1 Tirinus, the 
Jesuit, writing in the seventeenth century, 
declares : " In the other life original sin — 

1 Lombard: Sentat. L. II. Quoted by Krauth: 
Infant Salvation, p. 68. . 



No Children Lost, 19 

for example, in the case of infants who by 
it are unfitted for that life — is punished 
eternally ; . . . they are in prison, light and 
pleasant indeed, yet of the nature of hell, 
in which, under the power of the Devil, 
they dwell to eternity." The canons of 
the Council of Trent, which still stand as 
an authoritative declaration of the faith 
of the Church, teach : " If any one denies 
that new-born children must be baptized, 
or says that they do not derive from 
Adam anything of original sin which 
makes the laver of regeneration neces- 
sary to cleanse them for an entrance into 
everlasting life, let him be accursed. " l 
Such is the teaching of the Romish 
fathers. 

Turn now to the Reformers. Take first 
the Augsburg Confession, drawn up by the 

1 Schaff : Creeds of Christendom, vol. ii. p. 86. See 
also the Roman Catechism, par. ii. cap= ii. Quaest. 25. 
" Unless they are born again by the divine grace of bap- 
tism, they are brought forth by their parents, whether 
they are believers or unbelievers, for eternal misery and 
perdition." 



20 No Children Lost 

gentle Philip Melanchthon, — the earliest 
doctrinal statement of the Lutheran Church. 
It distinctly condemns all those who affirm 
that children may be saved without bap- 
tism : " Damnant Anabaptistas, qui impro- 
bant Baptismum puerorum, et affirmant 
pueros, sine Baptismo, salvos fieri." 1 

Following straight along this line we 
find the good Bishop Cranmer, of the 
English Church, saying in his Catechism : 
" If we should have heathen parents and 
die without baptism, we should be damned 
everlastingly." This was substantially the 
view of that branch of the Reformation 
which still held to sacramentarian doc- 
trines and insisted upon baptismal regen- 
eration. Turning to the other branch, 
we find its theologians asserting distinctly 
that infants may be saved without baptism. 
But on what ground ? On the ground of 
a secret election of God which assigns 
some to heaven and others to hell. 

Listen to John Calvin : " When the 

1 Confess. August., part i. art. ix. 



No Children Lost. 21 

Lord rejects the godless man, with his 
offspring, there is certainly no expostu- 
lation which we can make with God. . . . 
This, therefore, is to be held for certain, 
that all who are destitute of the grace of 
God are included under the sentence of 
eternal death; whence it follows that the 
children of the reprobate, whom the curse 
of God follows, are subject to the same 
sentence." * "Who will not adore this 
wonderful judgment of God, whereby it 
comes to pass that some are born at Je- 
rusalem, whence they soon pass to a better 
life, while Sodom, the gate of the lower 
regions, receives others at their birth?" 2 
" How comes it that the fall of Adam has 
involved so many nations, with their in- 
fant children, in eternal death, without 
remedy, unless because it "pleased God? 
I confess that the decree is horrible; but 
none can deny that God foreknew the 

1 On Isaiah xiv. 21. 

2 J. Calvini Opera. Brunsvigae, 1870. vol. viii. p. 
309. De ^Eterna Dei Predestinatione. 



22 No Children Lost. 

end of every man before creating him, 
and foreknew it because he ordained it 
so." 1 

And then hear Cocceius of Holland and 
Molinaeus of France, two great doctors of 
the seventeenth century: " Elect infants 
are not conceived and born as are the 
children of the Gentiles, concerning whom 
the presumption is certain that they with 
their mothers milk drink in godlessness 
unto destruction." 2 " As the eggs of the 
asp are deservedly crushed, and serpents 
just born are deservedly killed, though 
they have not yet poisoned any one with 
their bite, so infants are justly obnoxious 
to penalties." 3 

Finally, hear the Rev. Dr. Twiss, Pro- 
locutor of the Westminster Assembly: 
" Many infants depart from this life in 
original sin, and consequently are con- 
demned to eternal death on account of 

1 Instit, lib. iii. cap. xxiii. § 7. 

2 Catechis. Palat, Quaest. lxxiv. 

3 Anat. Arminianismi, p. 2. 



No Children Lost. 23 

original sin alone ; therefore from the sole 
transgression of Adam condemnation to 
eternal death has followed upon many 
infants." l 

But you are not to suppose that these 
teachings were confined to the books of 
divinity and sermons. They are to be 
found also in more popular literature. 
From this source we may take two char- 
acteristic examples. One is from the great 
Catholic poet Dante. He is entering the 
first circle of the Inferno ; and there he 
hears the air trembling with the sighs of 
many infants and women and men. His 
guide says to him : — 

" Thou dost not ask 
What spirits these may be which thou beholdest : 
Now will I have thee know, ere thou go farther, 
That they sinned not ; and if they merit had, 
'T is not enough, because they had not Baptism, 
Which is the portal of the Faith thou holdest." 2 

The other is from a small Puritan poet, 
by name Michael Wigglesworth, of Massa- 

1 Vindiciae, vol. i. p. 48. 

2 Inferno, book iv., Longfellow's Translation. 



24 No Children Lost. 

chusetts. He is describing the Last Judg- 
ment, and brings the reprobate infants 
before the bar of justice. They plead for 
pardon, but the Judge replies : — 

" You sinners are ; and such a share 

as sinners may expect, 
Such you shall have, for I do save 

none but mine own Elect. 
Yet to compare your sin with their 

who lived a longer time, 
I do confess, yours is much less, 

though every sin 's a crime. 
A Crime it is ; therefore in bliss 

you may not hope to dwell ; 
But unto you I shall allow 

the easiest room in Hell." * 

Criticism upon these verses would be 
superfluous. But I think you will agree 
with me in saying that the man who could 
spend his time in carefully fitting such 
sentiments as these into a tripping metre 
and a double rhyme must have been a 
man, to use Dr. Johnson's phrase, " little 
to be envied." 

" But for what reason," some one may 

1 The Day of Doom, 1662. 



No Children Lost. 25 

ask, " have you been at pains to collect 
these various and terrific utterances of so 
many men upon this subject ?" There 
are two good reasons. First, in order to 
show clearly that this old doctrine of the 
perdition of infants is not a sectarian af- 
fair, not a thing to be treated as if it be- 
longed to any particular age or any one 
set of Christians, but that the responsi- 
bility for it is very widely distributed, and 
that we are bound in honour to consider 
it in an atmosphere that is clear and 
free from all denominational bitterness 
and strife. Second, in order that we may 
understand clearly what it was that led 
men to hold and teach it. It was the 
subtle pride of intellect, the vain desire 
of absolute logical consistency. Starting 
with the most opposite premises, they felt 
bound to carry them out to the bitter end, 
no matter what it might be. Beginning, 
on the one hand, with the statement that 
baptism is absolutely necessary to salva- 
tion, they went straight on to the conclu- 



26 No Children Lost. 

sion that unbaptized infants must be lost. 
Breaking away at the Reformation from 
that chain of error, they fell into another 
no less heavy, no less of iron. Setting 
out with the statement that God for his 
own glory predestines some men to ever- 
lasting death, they went straight on to 
the conclusion that the harmless, new- 
born children of Sodom are precipitated 
at death into perdition. 

But were not the men who taught this 
great men, and learned men, and mighty 
men? Were they not very giants of logic, 
their little fingers thicker than the loins of 
the men of to-day? Yea, verily, and he 
would be over-bold who went out against 
them in his own strength. But do you 
remember another giant who stood forth 
as a champion, boasting that none could 
overthrow him? And do you remember 
a shepherd lad, who dared to face him 
with a sling and a smooth stone from the 
brook? There is an armoury which God 
has furnished for all who would withstand 



No Children Lost. 27 

giants in His name. You may reach your 
hand down into the brook of living water 
that flows in the words of Jesus Christ. 
From those cool depths you take a stone, 
clear and strong, and precious as a dia- 
mond; and full against the forehead of 
whatever giant says that dying infants are 
damned, you send this answer: "Even so 
it is not the will of your Father which is in 
heaven that one of these little ones should 
perish." 

Yes, that is the simple and mighty 
truth. Hundreds and even thousands of 
learned and subtle doctors may have 
taught the possible perdition of infants. 
Poets great and small may have embalmed 
the doctrine in their verse, like a fly in 
amber or a toad in mud. But for all that 
it is false. The Church to-day refuses to 
believe it; all Christendom to-day rejects 
it, and casts it out. 1 You and I turn from 

1 Except possibly the strict Romanist [vide Cardinal 
Gibbons, " The Faith of our Fathers," pp. 310-316) and 
the ultra-Calvinist. 



28 No Children Lost. 

it, and deny it. And why? By what power 
has the heart of Christendom been strength- 
ened to expel this doctrine? By the power 
of the pure Word of God overcoming the 
deadly logic of the schools. By what 
authority do we decline to believe that 
there is a single infant in perdition? By 
the authority of Jesus Christ, who has 
enlightened our hearts to know and trust 
a holy and just and loving God. 

II. Come, then, and let us understand 
exactly where we stand upon this question, 
and what is the strength of our position. 
It is not merely an amiable repugnance to 
believe what is unpleasant ; it is rather an 
absolute refusal to believe what is unscrip- 
tural and unchristian. It is not merely a 
protest of the affections against a harsh 
doctrine; it is a protest of the faith 
against a false doctrine. And we propose 
to set in order some of the reasons why 
we do not and will not believe it. 

(i) The doctrine of the perdition of 
infants is false, because there is nothing 



No Children Lost, 29 

in the Word of God to support it. Search 
the Scriptures from beginning to end, and 
you will not find a single word, a single 
syllable, which implies that children are 
to be sent into everlasting death. 

But some one will say, " What, then, 
do you make of the command which was 
given to the Israelites to destroy the chil- 
dren of Amalek? How do you explain 
that?" We do not explain it. We sim- 
ply deny that it has anything to do with 
the question. For even if you admit that 
such a command came from God- instead 
of from the hearts of half-enlightened men, 
the death of little children amid the cruel- 
ties of ancient war no more justifies us in 
thinking that God would cast them into 
perdition, than the fact that your child had 
burned his hand in the fire that glows on 
your hearth would be a proof that you 
were willing to shut him up in a fiery 
prison forever. 

" But then," the objector may continue, 
" what do you say to the declaration that 



30 No Children Lost. 

the sins of the parents shall be visited 
upon the children unto the third and 
fourth generation?" We say that you 
have stopped short in the middle of the 
quotation. For how does it read? " The 
sins of the fathers upon the children unto 
the third and fourth generation of them 
that hate me!' Only where the hatred 
against God continues, and works, and 
utters itself in wickedness, does the di- 
vine anger rest. Not upon the helpless 
and harmless babe, not upon the little 
children born in the homes of ignorance 
and vice ; for them the good God has only 
the tenderest pity and compassion. The 
very fact that they are involved, without 
their fault, without their choice, in the pain 
and trouble of a sin-cursed world, is a 
mystery of hope in the darkness of their 
death. For out of a world in which the 
harmless are tangled in the net with the 
guilty, they pass into the presence of that 
God who is plenteous in mercy, and who 
is not willing that one of these little ones 



No Children Lost. 31 

should perish. Shall He not recompense 
them for the brief sorrows of their mor- 
tal life? I tell you, the world to come 
would have no meaning, the future life 
would be a vain and empty delusion, if it 
did not contain the promise of deliverance 
for helpless sufferers. And I challenge 
any one to find a single word in the Bible 
which teaches that the sorrows falling upon 
little children in this world of sin and 
shame are continued for one instant after 
the angel of death has set their spirits free 
to enter the world of light. 

(2) But this argument is only negative, 
and we must pass on at once to the second 
point, which is positive. The doctrine of 
the perdition of infants is false, because it 
is condemned by natural justice. 

This is an argument which needs to be 
used with caution, and with an implicit 
understanding of those limitations and 
conditions which people of intelligence 
always take for granted in the simple state- 
ment of a broad and general principle. It 



32 No Children Lost, 

is not to be supposed for a moment that 
everything which we cannot see to be right 
must therefore be wrong. It is not to be 
assumed for a moment that our human 
sense of justice is perfect and infallible, 
or that we are acquainted with all the con- 
siderations which enter into the judgment 
of God. 

But there is, in spite of all ignorance 
and defect, a perception of equity in the 
human soul which corresponds to the attri- 
bute of righteousness in God. And this 
is what we affirm: the more highly this 
moral sense is educated, the more clearly 
and unequivocally does it reluctate against 
the notion that God will condemn the soul 
of one little child to everlasting death, 
either on account of the guilt of Adam's 
sin, or on account of the neglect of its 
parents to have it baptized. 

For here, mark you, we are not con- 
sidering the operations of Providence, 
in which there must be inscrutable mys- 
teries, since they proceed upon general 



No Children Lost. 33 

laws too large for our comprehension; 
nor are we discussing the methods and 
means of divine justice in the present 
transitory state of things, in which we 
know that the tares cannot be separated 
from the wheat, and in which we are con- 
scious of suffering brought upon us by 
the voluntary transgression or the careless 
neglect of others. All that goes without 
saying. But now we are looking onward 
to the final result of the divine justice ; and 
the one thought that enables us to submit 
with humility to the apparent inequalities 
in the course of Providence in this world, 
and to reconcile ourselves to the present 
sufferings of those who have not con- 
sciously or wilfully offended, is the firm 
conviction that these will all be rectified 
and compensated at last, and that the end 
of all things will manifest the equity of 
God in clear splendour. 

In the absence, then, of any authentic 
revelation that infants will go into perdi- 
tion, in the absence of any credible wit- 
3 



34 No Children Lost. 

ness to inform us that he has seen " babes 
in hell not a span long," we assert, against 
all logical and theological deductions, the 
instinctive and inalienable sense of justice 
in the human heart. 

" A warmth within the breast would melt 
The freezing reason's colder part ; 
And, like a man in wrath, the heart 
Stood up and answered, I have felt." 

How could we believe such a morally 
insane doctrine as that the final outworking 
of God's justice will be to spare the origi- 
nal offender and damn his helpless chil- 
dren? For that, in plain language, is what 
it all amounts to. Adam is saved. The 
Church has given him a place among the 
saints. Raphael has painted him among 
the blessed who sit around the throne, 
in the great picture of the Disputa della 
Trinita. Dante has described him as the 
first in that happy circle which surrounds 
the mystic Rose of Paradise. From these 
pictures of celestial bliss we are told to 
cast our eyes downward and contemplate 



No Children Lost. 35 

the miseries of myriads of Adam's children 
who have been plunged into eternal tor- 
ment solely on account of his sin. The 
vision is a dream of madness. It is a 
nightmare monstrosity of error. Before 
I could believe in it, I should have to an- 
nihilate my conscience and commit moral 
suicide. 

(3) But there is a still stronger argu- 
ment against the perdition of infants. It 
is directly contrary to the principles of 
judgment as they are revealed to us by 
Jesus Christ. 

Let us understand very clearly that 
Christ teaches that there is punishment 
in the future world, and that this punish- 
ment is so great that it passes the power 
of human thought to conceive it. But 
let us never forget that He teaches also 
that this punishment is just and right- 
eous, and that not a single stroke of it 
will ever fall upon any who have not de- 
served it by their own sins and refused de- 
liverance by their own impenitence. Listen 



36 No Children Lost, 

to His parables of judgment, and you shall 
hear of men who are condemned for pride 
and selfishness and greed, like Dives and the 
unmerciful servant; you shall hear of men 
who are condemned for neglect of duty 
and contempt of God, like the man with 
one talent and the unfaithful steward ; you 
shall hear of men who are condemned for 
hardness of heart, like those who minis- 
tered not to the sick and the hungry and 
the prisoners, or for scorn of mercy, like 
those who would not come to the wedding 
feast, and him who would not put on 
the wedding garment; you shall hear of 
men who are condemned for rejecting the 
prophets and slaying the Saviour, like the 
wicked husbandmen. These all pass into 
darkness, but it is because they have al- 
ready loved darkness and lived in it. This 
is the very principle of their judgment, — 
that they have deserved it, they have 
brought it upon themselves. They are 
lost because they will not be saved, be- 
cause they are cruel and rebellious and 



No Children Lost. 37 

unjust and negligent and scornful. And 
it is for this reason that the loving and 
gracious Christ tells us of their perdition, 
in order that we may know that we also 
must give account to God of the deeds 
done in the body. 

Now, if you introduce another principle 
of judgment, if you say that any soul may 
be lost for the sin of Adam, for not ac- 
cepting an invitation which it could not 
understand, for not receiving a baptism 
which was never offered, for not repenting 
and believing before repentance and faith 
were possible, — if you introduce any such 
foreign principle, you absolutely cancel 
and obliterate the teachings of Christ, and 
leave the future world a moral chaos, 
dominated solely by a blind and brutal 
terror. If judgment means anything, it 
means that this is forever impossible. If 
the w r ords of Christ mean anything, they 
mean that not one helpless, harmless child 
will ever be banished into the outer dark- 
ness by the just God. 



38 No Children Lost. 

(4) And this brings us to the fourth 
and last reason for rejecting the doctrine 
of infant perdition. It is false, because it 
is contrary to the revelation of the love of 
God which is given unto us in Christ Jesus 
our Lord. There was a time when men 
refused to accept this revelation in its in- 
tegrity, because it would not fit into their 
theories. Coming to the text, " God so 
loved the world,' they cut it down to 
suit their logic, and said, " This means 
the world of the elect." But by the gra- 
cious Spirit of God the darkness of that 
time has been dispelled. We believe that 
Christ meant just what He said. We be- 
lieve that God is love, and that His mighty 
heart broods over all the world with an in- 
finite tenderness, willing to save and bless 
it. Everywhere that love is flowing, fol- 
lowing, seeking, calling for its children. 
Into every soul that does not refuse it, it 
will come. In every life that does not 
reject it, it will accomplish its divine pur- 
pose. And sooner shall our hearts learn 



No Children Lost. 39 

to forget and hate the children that have 
nestled beside them, sooner shall our 
hands be ready to cast them into the 
flames, than God's heart shall forget, than 
God's hand shall cast away, one of the 
little souls that pass, helpless and harmless, 
out of the shadow of their brief mortal life 
into the light of his loving presence. 

And here, for to-day, we must pause. 
In the next sermon I shall ask you to 
consider the proofs that all who die in 
infancy are certainly saved, and that there 
is a heaven full of happy children. But 
for the present we desire to make clear, 
beyond all possibility of mistake, our re- 
jection of infant perdition. 

We do not believe that there are any 
children in hell. We acknowledge that 
men have taught this doctrine in the past, 
— men of all ages and of many churches, 
but we do not accept their teaching. If 
it is written or implied in any creed, we 
refuse allegiance to it. If it is an essen- 
tial part of any theological system, we cut 



40 No Children Lost. 

loose from it. Out of the shadow of that 
darkness we have emerged. And the light 
that has led us is not the light of our own 
reason, but the light of the knowledge of 
the glory of God shining in the face of 
Jesus Christ. At His manger-cradle we 
have learned the meaning of the Gospel 
for Little Children; and henceforth for us 
there shall come no haunting terror, no 
black despair, into the room where a child 
is dying. If we must see the dear face 
grow pale, and feel the little hand grow 
cold, at least it shall be with a spirit un- 
troubled by any mistrust of God, with a 
love that is calm, and still, and secure of 
the future. All shall be quiet and peaceful 
in that last vigil of affection : — 

" We watched her breathing through the night, 
Her breathing soft and low, 
As in her breast the wave of life 
Kept heaving to and fro. 

" Our very hopes belied our fears, 
Our fears our hopes belied ; 
We thought her dying when she slept, 
And sleeping when she died. 



No Children Lost. 41 

" For when the morn came, dim and sad, 
And chill with early showers, 
Her quiet eyelids closed, — she had 
Another morn than ours." 

Come away, then, from that still room. 
Close the door softly, and whisper to your- 
self, in the assurance of a divine faith, 
"Even so it is not the will of our Father 
in heaven that one of these little ones 
should perish" 



MY CHILD. 

I cannot make him dead ! 

His fair sunshiny head 
Is ever bounding round my study chair ; 

Yet, when my eyes, now dim 

With tears, I turn to him, 
The vision vanishes — he is not there ! 

I walk my parlor floor, 

And, through the open door, 
I hear a footfall on the chamber stair ; 

I 'm stepping toward the hall 

To give the boy a call ; 
And then bethink me that — he is not there ! 

I thread the crowded street; 

A satchelled lad I meet, 
With the same beaming eyes and colored hair ; 

And, as he 's running by, 

Follow him with my eye, 
Scarcely believing that — he is not there ! 

I know his face is hid 
Under the coffin-lid ; 
Closed are his eyes ; cold is his forehead fair ; 



44 My Child. 

My hand that marble felt ; 
O'er it in prayer I knelt ; 
Yet my heart whispers that — he is not there ! 

I cannot make him dead ! 

When passing by the bed, 
So long watched over with parental care, 

My spirit and my eye 

Seek him inquiringly, 
Before the thought comes that — he is not there ! 

When, at the cool, gray break 

Of day, from sleep I wake, 
With my first breathing of the morning air 

My soul goes up with joy, 

To Him who gave my boy ; 
Then comes the sad thought that — he is not there ! 

When at the day's calm close, 

Before we seek repose, 
I 'm with his mother, offering up our prayer ; 

Whate'er I may be saying, 

I am in spirit praying 
For our boy's spirit, though — he is not there! 

Not there ! Where, then, is he ? 

The form I used to see 
Was but the raiment that he used to wear. 

The grave, that now doth press 

Upon that cast-off dress, 
Is but his wardrobe locked; — he is not there ! 



My Child. 45 

He lives ! — In all the past 

He lives ; nor, to the last, 
Of seeing him again will I despair ; 

In dreams I see him now ; 

And, on his angel brow, 
I see it written, " Thou shalt see me there / " 

Yes, we all live to God ! 

Father, Thy chastening rod 
So help us, thine afflicted ones, to bear, 

That, in the spirit-land, 

Meeting at Thy right hand, 
? T will be our heaven to find that — he is there ! 

John Pierpont. 



SW €tyllixm &ate& 



II. 



Suffer tfje little rfjtltrren to eonte unto me, anti 
fotfjfti tfjem not ; (or of met) fe tfje femgtjom of 
@oti, — Mark x. 14. 

TT 7E have good reason for refusing to 
* * believe that God would send the 
soul of a little child into endless punish- 
ment. If we attach any meaning to the 
words "just" and " merciful/' as we use 
them in speaking of the Divine Being, they 
imply a character in God which must make 
it impossible for Him to deal thus with the 
most helpless of His creatures. It would 
be contrary to the nature of God as He is 
revealed in Jesus Christ. It would destroy 
the foundation principles of the divine 
judgment as they are laid down in the 
New Testament. It would sweep away the 
very grounds on which we accept the Bible 
4 



50 All Children Saved. 

as the Word of God, and the reasons which 
lead us to worship and love our Father 
in heaven. For surely the strongest argu- 
ments in favour of Christianity are those 
which are addressed to our moral sense. 
It appeals to us most deeply because it 
answers the purest and highest instincts 
of our nature, — instincts of justice, of 
compassion, of goodness, of love. And 
so long as we rely upon these to sup- 
port the claims of Christianity, we are en- 
titled — or rather we are bound — to rely 
upon them to interpret the teachings of 
Christianity. 

It is upon these moral instincts, then, 
that we fall back in our rejection of the 
horrible decree of infant perdition. No 
logical deductions from the human state- 
ment of theological premises can force 
us to accept a conclusion so repugnant to 
the moral sense. On the contrary, such 
deductions amount simply to a disproof of 
the principles from which they are drawn. 
They act as a reductio ad absurdnm ; and 



All Children Saved. 51 

we refuse to believe either the dogma that 
there is no salvation without baptism, or 
the dogma that an absolute and eternal 
decree foreordains men to be damned, 
simply because these dogmas would lead 
to the conclusion that there are babes in 
hell, and so destroy our faith in the ulti- 
mate justice and goodness of God. 

But you see at once that this attitude is 
altogether negative. It sets us free from 
the falsehood, but it does not put us in 
possession of the truth. " Remorse of 
equity ," as Hooker has called it, had driven 
many a man into this position even in the 
days when the doctrine of infant perdition 
was taught in its unmitigated severity, and 
when the rejection of it involved the peril 
of condemnation for heresy. 

Michael Servetus was one of these. 
Among the errors for which the magis- 
trates of Geneva condemned him to be 
burned was this : he taught that " all who 
are taken from life as infants and children 
are exempt from eternal death." And I 



52 All Children Saved. 

think you will agree with me that this 
particular heresy was one for which a 
man could suffer martyrdom with honour. 
Episcopius also, the leader of the Armin- 
ians, held that infants are liberated by 
special divine grace from the perdition of 
sin. Hugo Grotius, the first and the 
greatest of modern lawyers, uttered his 
clear protest against the horrible decree 
which consigns helpless children to in- 
evitable perdition. 

Many others took the same ground; 
some of them were avowedly Calvinists,but 
they held that Calvin was not infallible, 
and refused to follow him beyond the 
Word of God. Among them was a man 
whose name is familiar to all of us, — Dr. 
Isaac Watts, the poet, whose " Little Busy 
Bee " still serves as an example to good 
children, and whose hymns we still sing 
with love in our churches. He professed 
himself utterly unwilling to believe that 
" any little children are condemned to 
eternal misery for nothing else but because 



All Children Saved. 53 

they were born of Adam, the original 
transgressor." But, not being able to see 
his way beyond this denial, he boldly cut 
the Gordian knot of their destiny by 
affirming his opinion that many of them 
at death are annihilated, and pass out of 
existence altogether. It was a daring con- 
clusion, and yet infinitely wiser and more 
reasonable than the doctrine of Saint 
Augustine or Calvin. 

But is it indeed the final word upon the 
subject? Is it not possible for those who 
hold fast to the Bible as the Word of God, 
and believe in Jesus Christ as the Saviour 
of the world, to go far beyond the denial 
that there are infants in hell? 

Surely that is only the first step in the 
path that leads out of the darkness into the 
light. The same principles that justify us 
in believing that the little children are not 
of the kingdom of Satan, give us the assur- 
ance that they belong to the kingdom of 
God. Nay, more; we have " a more sure 
word of prophecy " for this sermon than we 



54 All Children Saved. 

had for the first. There we met the false 
logic of men with arguments drawn from 
our own moral nature in its response to 
the teachings of the Scripture; but here 
we bring the importunate question of the 
heart in regard to the future state of little 
children directly to the gospel of Jesus 
Christ for an answer. 

I will admit that without this gospel 
we should be in the dark. Justice alone 
does not demand the salvation of little 
children. But mercy — mercy of God as 
it is revealed in Jesus — does assure their 
salvation. Far, and infinitely far beyond 
the best intimations that natural religion 
and the moral sense can give us, — yes, 
far beyond a submissive willingness to 
leave the fate of infants in the hands of 
that God whose tender mercies are over 
all his works, 1 and far beyond the pious 
hope that they will be saved, 2 — we follow 

1 Sermons by President Dickinson of Princeton, 
p. 205. 

2 Dr. Archibald Alexander's letter to Bishop Meade 
of Virginia, 1849. 



All Children Saved. 55 

the spirit of the gospel and the teachings 
of Jesus Christ to affirm our faith that 
all who die in infancy are saved, and that 
there is a heaven full of happy children. 

I propose to-day to set in order some of 
the grounds on which thqt faith rests ; so 
that when any one asks, " What becomes 
of little children when they die?" we may 
understand that we have a right to answer 
positively, "They are all saved." 

And first of all, let us mention with 
honour the names of some of the great and 
good men of the past who have held this 
faith and expressed it under difficulties. 
Ulrich Zwingle, the brave Swiss reformer, 
who died at the head of his followers, 
fighting for liberty of conscience, was one. 
Isaac Barrow, the learned English mathe- 
matician and theologian, was another. 
Augustus Toplady, whose noble hymn, 
" Rock of Ages," is a joy forever to the 
Church, was another. Lyman Beecher, who 
stood like a bulwark against infidelity in 
our country during the first half of this 



56 All Children Saved, 

century, was another. And, not to weary 
you with the noble names which now come 
rushing in upon us in the full tide of a 
" larger hope," Charles Hodge, — venerable 
and beloved man, for whose instructions 
and example I thank God as one of the 
greatest blessings of my life, — Charles 
Hodge, pillar of orthodoxy and defender 
of the faith, was another of those who 
affirmed their belief in the salvation of all 
who die in infancy. Before he passed to 
his reward in heaven, he bore testimony 
that "the common doctrine of evangelical 
Protestants is that all who die in infancy 
are saved." 

Mark these words. It is not an indi- 
vidual opinion, which you and I hold in 
opposition to our brethren. It is not a 
secret desire which we cherish without 
reason or Scripture to sustain it. It is a 
common doctrine, which we hold in the 
brotherhood of the faith and preach as a 
part of the blessed gospel. The man who 
does not hold it is a modern heretic, a 



All Children Saved. 57 

separatist, a solitary, a belated wanderer 
out of the Dark Ages, a man born three 
centuries behind his time, a man like the 
demoniac of Gadara, whose dwelling is 
among the tombs, — a man who knows not 
" the things that have come to pass in these 
days." For the hidden hope that sprang 
up in the hearts of a few disciples in the 
past, forcing its way like a trickling stream 
through the crevices of those massive walls 
of logic which were built to dam it down, 
has been fed by the Word of God and the 
Spirit of Christ until it has risen into the 
flood of a mighty river, sweeping the pon- 
derous barriers away like chaff. 

No progress in theology? Yes, thank 
God, there is progress. Not greater or 
more divine was the advance when Saint 
Paul vindicated the right of the Gentiles 
to a place in the kingdom of Christ; not 
greater or more divine was the advance 
when Luther and Calvin and Knox broke 
the chains of Roman error, and gave the 
Church the open Bible as her inheritance ; 



58 All Children Saved. 

not greater or more divine was any step 
that the Church of Christ has ever taken, 
than that which lies between the days when 
venerable doctors of the Westminster As- 
sembly believed that God was glorified by 
many children of Turks and Indians crying 
and leaping in hell, and this day, in which 
we affirm our common evangelical faith 
that all dying infants are saved, and that 
God's heaven is thronged with happy 
children. 

But why do we believe this, and on what 
ground do we teach it? Let us state the 
reasons for our faith as briefly and as 
simply as possible. 

I. In the first place, we believe in the 
salvation of all the little children, because 
we believe that Jesus Christ died for all 
mankind. It was the world that God loved 
in His infinite compassion, and it was to 
take away the sin of the world that God 
sent His own Son to live a perfect life and 
to taste death for every man upon the 
cross of Calvary. This is the teaching of 



All Children Saved, 59 

the Holy Scripture. To narrow or con- 
fine it is to do dishonour to the Word of 
God; nay, worse, it is to tie the hands 
that were pierced upon the cross with 
the bonds of our theology. 

The atonement of Jesus Christ has an 
infinite value and a world-wide meaning. 
It has a relation to the whole human race ; 
not merely a possible relation, a theoretical 
relation, but an actual relation. It is be- 
stowed upon all mankind, as the air we 
breathe, as the sun that shines on us. It 
is a universal gift. It is the light which 
lighteth every man that cometh into the 
world. 

Why is it, then, that all men do not 
receive its benefits ? Simply and solely 
because they will not. " Ye will not come 
to me," said Jesus, " that ye might have 
life." 1 

And who are they whose lives are un- 
blessed, whose souls are unsaved by Jesus 
Christ? Only those of whom the Scrip- 

1 John v. 40. 



60 All Children Saved. 

ture clearly tells us that they have no part 
in His kingdom ; those who walk in pride 
and hardness of heart, unwilling to repent 
and seek mercy at God's hand ; those who 
walk in iniquity, following their fleshly 
lusts ; those who walk in darkness because 
they hate light ; those who walk in cruelty 
and oppression because they despise their 
fellow-men ; those who turn away from 
Jesus Christ and count the blood of the 
everlasting covenant an unholy thing, — 
these are they who shall never enter into 
the Holy City, nor find a place in God's 
blessed kingdom. 

But by what right, by what authority 
of Scripture, by what sanction of Jesus 
Christ would you cast out one little 
child to dwell among those wicked ones? 
What reason would God have for refusing 
admittance to one little child who knocked 
at heaven's gate? Christ died for all ; and 
His death avails for all except those whom 
the Gospel itself excludes from its benefits. 
There is not a line or a word to shut out 



All Children Saved. 61 

one of the little dying children. There- 
fore Christ died for them, and Christ saves 
them when they die. 

But perhaps some one will say, " How, 
then, do you get rid of the consequences 
of the Fall? How do you explain away 
the guilt of original sin which rests upon 
every descendant of the guilty Adam?" 
We do not explain it away. We are will- 
ing to accept the very strongest statement 
of it that you can possibly draw from the 
Bible ; and the stronger you make it, the 
more clearly does it prove the salvation 
of infants. For not one word does the 
Scripture say of the relation of Adam to 
the race, which it does not say of the re- 
lation of Christ to the race. If Adam was 
the federal head of a fallen humanity, 
then Christ was the federal head of a re- 
deemed humanity. If Adam's transgres- 
sion brought a curse on all mankind, 
then Christ's atonement brought a bless- 
ing upon all mankind. The closer you 
bind a child to his fallen Father Adam, 



62 All Children Saved. 

the closer do you bind him to his risen 
Father Christ. If it is true that 

" In Adam's fall 
We sinned all," 

it is just as true that 

" Christ Jesu's cross 
Redeem'd our loss." 

Turn to the fifth chapter of the Epistle 
to the Romans, and read what the inspired 
Apostle Paul has written on this subject. 
It is an immense gospel, wider than the 
earth and deeper than the sea : " So then 
as through one trespass the judgment came 
unto all men to condemnation, even so 
through one act of righteousness the free 
gift came unto all men to justification of 
life. For as through one man's disobe- 
dience the many were made sinners, even 
so through the obedience of one shall the 
many be made righteous. ,, * What inter- 
pretation can we put upon this lan- 
guage? What in the name of truth and 
honesty can it mean, unless it means that 

1 Romans v. 18, 19. 



All Children Saved. 63 

the obedience of Christ countervails the 
disobedience of Adam, and blots it out 
completely? Yes, that is the doctrine of 
Scripture. Original sin is all atoned for; 
the guilt of it is taken away forever from 
the race by the Lamb of God. No living 
soul shall ever perish for Adam's trans- 
gression. " For if by the trespass of one 
the many died, much more did the grace 
of God, and the gift by the grace of the 
one man Jesus Christ, abound unto the 
many." x 

The little child that comes into the 
world is born into a sinful humanity, but 
it is not guilty in God's sight any more 
than it is guilty in your sight. It is made 
innocent by the precious blood of Christ, 
as of a lamb without spot or blemish; 
and if it passes out of this world before 
it has wilfully turned away from the mercy 
of God, before it has chosen sin and loved 
it and lived in it, it passes pure and guilt- 
less, a ransomed spirit, a lost child found, 

1 Romans v. 15. 



64 All Children Saved. 

a beloved child saved, into the boundless 
love of our Father in heaven. 

2. In the second place, we believe in 
the salvation of all dying infants, because 
it is in accordance with the teachings of 
Christianity in regard to the desire and 
purpose of God to save every soul that can 
possibly be saved, and the vast extent of 
His kingdom of eternal happiness. 

These teachings are not confined to the 
New Testament We find them embedded 
in the prophecies which foretold the com- 
ing of Christ. No one can read the Bible 
candidly without acknowledging that it 
tells from the very beginning of a God that 
delighteth not in the death of the wicked, 
— a God that loveth mercy and findeth in 
judgment a strange work. Christ came into 
this world to reveal this God, — to show us 
the very heart of His heart and the abun- 
dance of His love. And the Apostles of 
Christ proclaimed Him as a God not will- 
ing that any should perish. 

Now, think for a moment of the pres- 



All Children Saved. 65 

ence and power of His Holy Spirit, who 
worketh where and when and how He 
pleaseth, — as secret and as viewless as 
" the wind that bloweth where it listeth, 
and thou canst not tell whence it cometh 
and whither it goeth," — think of that 
Spirit of life and love moving silently 
everywhere through the world, and im- 
agine, if you can, that the souls of little 
children whom God loves, whom God de- 
sires to save, are lost to Him as they flutter 
through the gates of death into the other 
world. Shall it be said of the sparrows 
that " not one of them falleth to the 
ground without your Father," and yet 
shall the flocks of childish souls fly away 
into the night without His notice or His 
care? I tell you, not one of those little 
wanderers can slip unseen past the good 
Father who watches and waits for them. 

Is there any spiritual grace which they 

require to fit them for the vision of God ? 

The Spirit can bestow that grace upon 

them, even though they are unconscious 

5 



66 All Children Saved, 

of it. Do they need to be born again? 
He who gave them life will give them new 
life. They fly from our arms, not into the 
arms of darkness, but into the arms of 
God; and with Him they are safe. 

If this were not true, how, then, should 
we understand the teachings of the Bible 
in regard to the immense number of the 
redeemed, and the measureless population 
of the city of God? Out of our human 
race the vast majority perish in childhood. 
And yet the promise of God has ever been 
that the company of the redeemed should 
far exceed the company of the lost. "Thy 
seed," said He to the father of the faithful, 
" shall be like the sands of the seashore. 
Thy seed shall be like the stars of heaven 
for multitude." Countless myriads, more 
than the human mind can number, shall 
be gathered in the abode of peace. The 
kingdom of darkness is a lake, bounded 
and shut in on every side; the kingdom 
of light is a sea, stretching far beyond 
our sight, and dazzling with radiance, 



All Children Saved. 67 

into the horizon which is infinite. The 
voice of death is but a slender note 
vanishing in the night; the voice of 
praise is as the sound of many waters 
rising forever about the throne of God 
and the Lamb. 

" Ten thousand times ten thousand, 
In sparkling raiment bright, 
The armies of the ransomed saints 
Throng up the steeps of light." 

And how shall that ever be, how shall 
the number of the redeemed immeasura- 
bly surpass the number of the lost, unless 
that great, silent, helpless majority of the 
human race who die in childhood shall be 
gathered among the blessed in God's king- 
dom ? In those mighty throngs there 
will be countless little saints, born in pain 
on earth for a moment that they might 
live in joy in heaven forever. In that vast 
anthem of increasing praise there will be a 
part set for children's voices, — a part that 
none could sing save those whose only 
music had been learned from the angels. 



68 All Children Saved. 

Do you remember Raphael's picture — 
the Sistine Madonna? The cloud against 
which the holy child Jesus and his mother 
are revealed seems at first sight to be 
only a celestial vapour; but as you look 
at it more closely you see that it is com- 
posed of beautiful, shining infant faces. 
It is no poet's dream; it is a reality. 
The very air of heaven is populous and 
radiant with happy childhood. That 
which the prophet wrote in his ancient 
vision of the earthly Jerusalem is true of 
the City of God : " The streets of the city 
shall be full of boys and girls playing in 
the streets thereof." 

3. In the third place, we believe that all 
little children pass through the door of 
death into the heaven of God, because 
Jesus Christ has taught us that they 
belong to heaven. Hearken to His 
words : — 

" At the same time came the disciples unto 
Jesus, saying, Who is the greatest in the kingdom 
of heaven? 



All Children Saved. 69 

" And Jesus called a little child unto him, and 
set him in the midst of them, 

u And said, Verily, I say unto you, Except ye 
be converted, and become as little children, ye 
shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. 

"Whosoever therefore shall humble himself 
as this little child, the same is greatest in the 
kingdom of heaven. 

" Take heed that ye despise not one of these lit- 
tle ones : for I say unto you, That in heaven their 
angels do always behold the face of my Father 
which is in heaven." 1 

" And he sat down, and called the twelve, and 
saith unto them, If any man desire to be first, 
the same shall be last of all, and servant of all. 

" And he took a child, and set him in the 
midst of them : and when he had taken him in 
his arms, he said unto them, 

"Whosoever shall receive one of such chil- 
dren in my name, receiveth me : and whosoever 
shall receive me, receiveth not me, but him that 
sent me." 2 

"And they brought young children to him, 
that he should touch them : and his disciples 
rebuked those that brought them. 

1 Matt, xviii. 1-4, 10. 2 Mark ix. 35-37. 



jo All Children Saved. 

u But when Jesus saw it, he was much dis- 
pleased, and said unto them, Suffer the little chil- 
dren to come unto me, and forbid them not : for 
of such is the kingdom of God. 

" Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not 
receive the kingdom of God as a little child, 
he shall not enter therein. 

" And he took them up in his arms, put his 
hands upon them, and blessed them." * 

I have said that our Master taught that 
the little children belong to heaven. It is, 
indeed, too little to claim for His teaching. 
For, as we look more closely at that four- 
teenth verse of the tenth chapter of St. 
Mark, we see that the words " of such " 
stand in the original in the genitive of 
possession. And this is the glorious truth 
that leaps out to meet us : " The king- 
dom of God belongs to such." It is the 
children's inheritance, their possession, 
their kingdom. Not one soul shall ever 
enter it who does not come as a little 
child, nor shall one who comes as a child 
fail to obtain an entrance. 
1 Mark x. 13-16. 



All Children Saved. y*i 

With these gracious words we may rest 
our case ; and so we come to the end of 
our two sermons on the state of little chil- 
dren after death. It is a task that has been 
before my mind through many months. 
I have studied and longed and prayed for 
strength and opportunity to accomplish it, 
— to proclaim clearly, and to prove cer- 
tainly out of the Word of God, that there 
is not a single infant in hell, and that 
heaven is thronged with happy children. 
And if any one shall ask why I have cared 
so much about this, and taken so much 
pains and time to do it, let me give him 
a simple and straightforward answer. 

It was not for the sake of casting any 
reproach upon those teachers of the past 
who have failed to read this doctrine in 
the Bible. It would be a strange thing if 
we could not reverence the wise and good 
men who have gone before us, even while 
we recognize that they were finite and fal- 
lible. It would be a strange thing if we 
could not cling to the heritage of truth 



72 All Children Saved. 

which they have left us, all the more 
firmly because we do not hesitate to pu- 
rify it from the errors of a deceptive human 
logic. If we see a little farther into the 
Bible than they did, it is not by our own 
light, but by the illumination which God 
gives like the growing day ; and that should 
never make us proud, but humble and 
grateful, and willing always to wait upon 
the Spirit of the Lord. 

Nor was it for the sake of making you 
think less of the justice and sovereignty of 
God that I desired to preach these ser- 
mons. On the contrary, it was to make 
you think more of those great doctrines, 
and to think of them not blindly, but with 
open eyes. God is infinitely just, and 
therefore the same judgment which con- 
demns you and me for the evil that we 
have done, justifies and saves the little 
child that has never done evil. God is 
absolutely sovereign, and therefore He can 
and will save all those who do not despise 
and reject his mercy. 



All Children Saved. 73 

But there were just three reasons why 
my heart was constrained and mightily 
impelled to preach this gospel about 
children. 

First, in order to make it easier for you 
to love God. If any one of you has ever 
thought of him as an impassive, supreme, 
iron-willed Monarch whose arbitrary de- 
cree sends immortal souls to death or to 
life solely and equally for His own good 
pleasure and glory, banish that thought 
forever from your mind. Learn to think 
of Him as the great Father whose nature 
and whose name is Love. Even as the 
sunlight embraces and encircles the whole 
earth, so does His love embrace and en- 
circle all humanity. Night comes only 
when we turn away from it; day comes 
when we turn toward it It is our duty 
to love God because everything in Him is 
supremely and perfectly lovable. That is 
salvation, — to love God and our fellow- 
men even as He loves us. And surely if 
anything can help us to do that, it is the 



74 -AH Children Saved. 

thought of His infinite, unceasing, everlast- 
ing care and tenderness for the little chil- 
dren who suffer and die on earth. 

The second reason why I have longed 
to preach this truth to you is in order that 
it might lead and draw you upward into 
a better life. There are some of you 
whose little children have been taken away 
into a happier world; and yet you are 
still living without God and without hope, 
living in sin and impenitence, living with- 
out a personal faith in Jesus Christ or an 
open acceptance of Him as your Saviour. 
Oh that the memories of human love might 
bring you into the kingdom of the divine 
love ! that you might be called by a still, 
small voice — the voice of a little child 
— out of a careless, sinful life into the 
life that leads to heaven ! that you might 
learn to say with David, " I shall go to 
him, though he may not return to me ! " 
Then, indeed, you would come, penitent 
and heart-broken, to the feet of Jesus, and 
cry, " Lord, thou art the Good Shepherd 



All Children Saved. 75 

of my little lamb ; be also the Shepherd 
of my soul forever, and bring us together 
in thy heavenly fold." 

There is one more reason why I have 
longed to preach and prove to you the 
salvation of the little children. It is for 
consolation and comfort. The Gospel of 
Jesus Christ is not sad tidings ; it is glad 
tidings. It is sent to bind up the broken- 
hearted, to give them the oil of joy for 
mourning, and the spirit of praise for the 
garment of heaviness. If there is any 
place where we need this comfort, it is at 
the death-bed of little children. To see 
them suffer, — so timid, so frail, so helpless ; 
unable to express their pain, or tell us what 
we can do to aid them ; and yet often so 
brave in their silent, childish heroism, — 
that tries our courage and our faith even 
to the uttermost. There is nothing that 
can sustain us, there is nothing that can 
console and quiet us, when the bright 
presence has vanished, and the little 
voice is still, save the thought that God 



*]6 All Children Saved, 

has taken His own again, and that the 
brief sorrow is changed into an eternal 
joy. 

" There is a Reaper, whose name is Death, 
And with his sickle keen 
He reaps the bearded grain at a breath, 
And the flowers that grow between, 

" He gazed at the flowers with tearful eyes, 
He kissed their drooping leaves ; 
It was for the Lord of Paradise 
He bound them in his sheaves. 

" * My Lord has need of these flowerets gay,' 
The Reaper said, and smiled ; 
1 Dear tokens of the earth are they 
Where he was once a child/ 

" And the mother gave, in tears and pain, 
The flowers she most did love ; 
She knew she should find them all again 
In the fields of light above. 

" Oh, not in cruelty, not in wrath, 
The Reaper came that day ; 
'T was an angel visited the green earth, 
And took the flowers away." 



THE THREE SONS. 

I have a son, a little son, a boy just five years 

old, 
With eyes of thoughtful earnestness, and mind of 

gentle mould. 
They tell me that unusual grace in all his ways 

appears, 
That my child is grave and wise of heart beyond 

his childish years. 
I cannot say how this may be ; I know his face is 

fair — 
And yet his chiefest comeliness is his sweet and 

serious air ; 
I know his heart is kind and fond ; I know he 

loveth me; 
But loveth yet his mother more with grateful fer- 
vency. 
But that which others most admire, is the thought 

which fills his mind, 
The food for grave inquiring speech he everywhere 

doth find. 
Strange questions doth he ask of me, when we 

together walk ; 
He scarcely thinks as children think, or talks as 

children talk. 



78 The Three Sons. 

Nor cares he much for childish sports, dotes not on 

bat or ball, 
But looks on manhood's ways and works, and aptly 

mimics all. 
His little heart is busy still, and oftentimes per- 

plext 
With thoughts about this world of ours, arid 

thoughts about the next. 
He kneels at his dear mother's knee ; she teacheth 

him to pray ; 
And strange, and sweet, and solemn then are the 

words which he will say. 
Oh, should my gentle child be spared to manhood's 

years like me, 
A holier and a wiser man I trust that he will be ; 
And when I look into his eyes, and stroke his 

thoughtful brow, 
I dare not think what I should feel, were I to lose 

him now. 

I have a son, a second son, a simple child of 
three ; 

I '11 not declare how bright and fair his little fea- 
tures be, 

How silver sweet those tones of his when he prat- 
tles on my knee; 

I do not think his light-blue eye is, like his broth- 
er's keen, 

Nor his brow so full of childish thought as his hath 
ever been ; 



The Three Sons. 79 

But his little heart's a fountain pure of kind and 

tender feeling ; 
And his every look 's a gleam of light, rich depths 

of love revealing. 
When he walks with me, the country folk, who pass 

us in the street, 
Will shout for joy, and bless my boy, he looks so 

mild and sweet. 
A playfellow he is to all ; and yet, with cheerful tone 
Will sing his little song of love, when left to sport 

alone. 
His presence is like sunshine sent to gladden home 

and hearth, 
To comfort us in all our griefs, and sweeten all our 

mirth. 
Should he grow up to riper years, God grant his 

heart may prove 
As sweet a home for heavenly grace as now for 

earthly love. 
And if, beside his grave, the tears of aching eyes 

must dim, 
God comfort us for all the love which we shall lose 

in him. 

I have a son, a third sweet son ; his age I cannot 

tell, 
For they reckon not by years and months where he 

has gone to dwell. 
To us, for fourteen anxious months, his infant 

smiles were given ; 



80 The Three Sons. 

And then he bade farewell to Earth, and went to 

live in Heaven. 
I cannot tell what form is his, what looks he wear- 

eth now, 
Nor guess how bright a glory crowns his shining 

seraph brow. 
The thoughts that fill his sinless soul, the bliss 

which he doth feel, 
Are numbered with the secret things which God 

will not reveal. 
But I know (for God hath told me this) that he is 

now at rest, 
Where other blessed infants be, on their Saviour's 

loving breast : 
I know his spirit feels no more this weary load of 

flesh, 
But his sleep is blessed with endless dreams of joy 

forever fresh. 
I know the angels fold him close beneath their glit- 
tering wings, 
And soothe him with a song that breathes of Heav- 
en's divinest things. 
I know that we shall meet our babe (his mother 

dear and I) 
Where God for aye shall wipe away all tears from 

every eye. 
Whate'er befalls his brethren twain, his bliss can 

never cease; 
Their lot may here be grief and fear, but his is 

certain peace. 



The Three Sons. 81 

It may be that the tempter's wiles their souls from 

bliss may sever ; 
But, if our own poor faith fail not, he must be ours 

forever. 
When we think of what our darling is, and what we 

still must be — 
When we muse on that world's perfect bliss, and 

this world's misery — 
When we groan beneath this load of sin, arid feel 

this grief and pain — 
Oh, we'd rather lose our other two, than have him 

here again ! 

John Moultrie. 



The End. 



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